Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus (Nautilus Pompilius, Linn.) with Illustrations of its External Form and Internal Structure by Owen, Richard - 1832

London: Richard Taylor, 1832. First edition.

1832 RICHARD OWEN'S FIRST DETAILED ANATOMIC STUDY BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE ENGRAVINGS OF THE PEARLY NAUTILUS.

11 1/2 inches tall hardcover, mauve cloth binding, gilt black leather title label to spine, bookplates of Drs. Noble S. M. Maluf and Robert L. Chevalier to front paste-down, [2], 68 pp, 15 fine engravings, 7 in duplicate, separated by tissue guards, showing external anatomy in outline and internal antomy in detail. The last engraving combines both in one plate. Spine ends frayed, spine label edge slightly worn, unmarked and otherwise near fine in custom archival mylar cover.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 325.

RICHARD OWEN (1804 – 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Despite being a controversial figure, Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. An outspoken critic of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Owen agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but thought it was more complex than outlined in Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Henceforth, he continued to make important contributions to every department of comparative anatomy and zoology for a period of over fifty years. Among Mollusca, he described not only the pearly nautilus but also Spirula (1850) and other Cephalopoda, both living and extinct, and it was he who proposed the universally-accepted subdivision of this class into the two orders of Dibranchiata and Tetrabranchiata (1832). Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus was Owen's first monograph, based on a single specimen of this delicate organism that had previously been known only by its shell" (D.S.B. 10: 261).. "The attention of the scientific community was first focused on Owen in 1832 when he published Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, which was based on a rare specimen with the soft parts still attached to the shell. In 1831 the College of Surgeons received just such a rare specimen, which had been caught by George Bennett off the New Hebrides in the Pacific Ocean. Owen immediately set to work and produced the first of his remarkable series of lastingly valuable monographs. He made many original observations on the relation of the animal to its shell, noting, among other things, that the walls of the chambers have a membrane lining which he called the pellicle. . . . The interest and quality of Owen's first memoir were such that it was translated into both French and German" (Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 120). Cited by Charles Darwin in his reading notebooks.